Scary Exaggerations Unfounded

Their Latest Scary Forecast

[I just love this graph. It's so over-the-top, it's like a "Pepsi-climate" ad -JN]

They reckon we have to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions immediately or we’ll fry. But these forecasts are based solely on what are essentially the same faulty climate models as in 1988, and are similarly exaggerated.

Their Earlier Scary Forecast Was Bunk

U.S. government climate scientists started the climate scare with a forecast to the U.S. Congress in 1988 which was based on climate models. Here it is, with the actual temperature that eventuated later added in red:

The carbon dioxide levels that occurred in reality were almost exactly those in scenario A, so it is the topmost line that is the relevant forecast.

Obviously the planet’s temperature (red line) hasn’t increased nearly as much as they forecast. After the temperature peak in 1998 (a strong El Nino year), the temperature appears to have leveled off. The temperature is only shown here to the beginning of 2010: in 2010 (another strong El Nino year) it peaked at the 0.6 degree line (cooler than in 1998), and as of March 2011 is plunging below the 0.4 degree line.

The planet is now cooler than what they forecast would happen if the world had savagely reduced its carbon emissions starting then in 1988.

Their theory and climate models are essentially the same now as then – the “science was settled” long ago. So why should the Australian public take the current alarmist forecasts of the Climate commission seriously?

Temperature Shenanigans

The source of the planet’s temperature above are satellites, which measure temperatures 24/7 over nearly all the land and oceans without bias.

The Climate Commission, after the IPCC, use only the land thermometers to measure the global temperature, in what can only be described as “cheating”.

See here for this and other photos of official thermometers near artificial heating sources,

and other easily understood cheating by western government climate scientists.

The official thermometers are often located in the warm exhaust of air conditioning outlets, over hot tarmac at airports where they get blasts of hot air from jet engines, at wastewater plants where they get warmth from decomposing sewage, or in hot cities choked with cars and buildings. Global warming is measured in tenths of a degree, so any extra heating nudge is important. In the US, nearly 90% of official thermometers surveyed by volunteers violate official siting requirements that they not be too close to an artificial heating source.

They use selected thermometers in warming locations, and call the results “global” warming. Anyone can understand that this is cheating: how can these thermometers possibly distinguish increased use of air conditioners, more aircraft traffic, more sewage, and bigger cities and more cars from a general increase in ambient temperature? They say that 2010 was the warmest recent year, but it was only the warmest year at various airports, selected air conditioners, and certain car parks.

Summary

Australia’s Climate Commissioners need to provide the public with real world data which establish both that dangerous global warming is occurring, and that human carbon dioxide emissions are the cause. Speculative computer models simply do not cut it.

———————————————-

About the Authors

Dr David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analyzing complex systems is electrical engineering, and the most crucial and disputed aspects of understanding the climate system are the feedbacks. The evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006, causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic. Website: sciencespeak.com. David is married to Joanne Nova.

Professor Bob Carter is an adjunct Research Fellow at James Cook University (Queensland). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than 40 years professional experience, and holds degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and the University of Cambridge (England). Bob has held tenured academic staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999. Bob has published more than 100 research papers in international science journals on many topics, including sea-level and climate change.

Bob Carter has acted as an expert witness on climate change before the U.S. Senate Committee of Environment & Public Works, the Australian and N.Z. parliamentary Select Committees into emissions trading and in a meeting in parliament house, Stockholm. He was also a primary science witness in the U.K. High Court case of Dimmock v. H.M.’s Secretary of State for Education, the 2007 judgement from which identified nine major scientific errors in Mr Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth“.

I’d like to see these models applied at past dates, say every 20 years from 1900, with exactly the same parameters used as in 2009. That would easily convince the public that they are nothing but bollocks.

Minor typo: “The three forecasts (blank lines) are for three scenarios” Should refer to ‘black‘ lines I believe. [fixed Thanks!] ED

The climate alarmists and the so called ‘Independent’ Climate Commission, pretend to take the scientific high road then treat the public like idiots by breaking all the rules of proper scientific research and reporting. In this latest effort they sink again to the sneaky marketing tricks, banned in most forms of advertising and illegal in the finance and securities industry. They have provided a misleading, out of date and improperly labelled graph. They also make totally unsupportable and misleading statements such as “the temperature rise to 2030 or 2040 is already set”. Is that right? If that is so certain how come the IPCC were so wrong at predicting what the global average temperature would be in the last decade?

The material on this website may include the views or recommendations of third parties, which do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commonwealth, or indicate its commitment to a particular course of action.

This website is not a substitute for independent professional advice and users should obtain any appropriate professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances.

The Commission recommends that users exercise their own skill and care with respect to their use of this web site and that users carefully evaluate the accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance of the material on the website for their purposes.

However, the Commission does not guarantee, and accepts no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material contained on this web site or on any linked site.

Not worth the paper that it’s not printed upon.

The taxpayers are paying for these flights of fancy.
In return, taxpayers receive utterances for which nobody will take any responsibility.

And when one does as advised (twice) in the disclaimer, one is denigrated as a denier; an extremist. In the pay of big oil or big tobacco.

Good link, which seems to contain all of the ultra-warmists’ propoganda. It would be really interesting if David Evans & Bob Carter (or anybody else, for that matter) had a squiz at the contents propoganda here to sift it for facts and fiction.

When you think about it, it makes you wonder whether there is anywhere in the world that citizens can blindly trust their government. It makes you realise too that any farcical “global government” is ultimately the route to anarchy & global conflict.

Nothing new really that ignorance & fear appear to be the tools (& possibly) weapons of choice.

Not only have the CAGW prophecies by the high church of global warming failed miserably to materialize, they have all been posited on a faulty premise. Namely, that rising CO2 levels would cause a positive feedback with water vapor. Their isn’t a shred of empirical evidence to support this fantasy. This climate alarmism “perpetual motion machine” is as elusive as the holy grail. Maybe they both can be found hiding in the missing hot spot? Besides, if a positive feedback mechanism from water vapor did exist it would have already occurred in the geological past when CO2 levels were much higher. Catastrophic global warming would have ended life as we know it and we would not be here to debate the matter at hand.

Propaganda is always most effective when aimed at children. It is the old Jesuit philosophy: Give me the child …

None of it is good propaganda, though. In fact, don’t remember ever seeing anything but amateurish propaganda in connection with the climate fiasco.

The really sad thing is that it doesn’t appear to matter. The majority of society has been so conditioned, that they accept what they are told by authority, without questioning.

But you know, this also applies to those who are in authority. They also believe what they are told without question, because they have become totally immersed in the proposition that specialisation in a field, ipso facto, implies competence and superior knowledge in that field.

But that ain’t necessarily so.

It is my hypothesis that the people pushing the fear of “catastrophic climate change” (or whatever it is being called this week), are actually too incompetent to survive in one of the more established sciences, so they have invented their own little sandpit where they can play amongst themselves. To get sand for their sandpit, they had to go to the people with the money, who said, “That looks like fun; can we play too?”, and so off they all went.

Meanwhile, the grown up scientists looked at all of the hype, and more importantly, all of the funding, and said, “Well, there must be something in this, otherwise they wouldn’t be buying all of those supercomputers.” Hence, through incompetence on one side, and a sense of “not really my speciality, old chap”, on the other, a consensus is formed.

Of course the more sceptical scientists spoke out, but the politicians had spent a lot of money on sand, and were having fun in the sand pit, so they just don’t want to stop playing, so the sceptics are ignored.

There have been parallel cases in the history of science.

The difference today, is the degree of instantaneous communication – that changes the game – with communication, things move much faster.

The good news is that those producing the propaganda share the same degree of incompetence as the climate scientists. Be thankful for small mercies.

Bernd Felsche:@9
That disclaimer says it all.
A campaign should be a mounted to have that changed to -

The commission accepts full legal responsibility and unlimited liability for all information on this site.

Then watch them run for cover.

It’s one thing to spread the propaganda you’re paid to spread.
It’s another to accept personal financial and legal responsibility for the outcome.
As someone said if this were financial advice they were giving they would already all be in jail.

The good thing (while we all shiver in the dark because of lack of electricity) is that the Climate Commission will have a serious case of egg-on-face when the world temperature goes down a degree or so.

Their own silly fault. Even the redoubtable Prof. Tim could graph solar cycle length vs temperature and see how strong the relationship is. Or he could read this paper should he not wish to trust his spreadsheeting skills. Then note that the last solar cycle was 12.6 years long.

Any objective scientist would conclude half of the temperature rise last century was due to this linkage. And another third due to the PDO/AMO cycle, since they were at bottom in 1900 and at peak in 2000. Not much left in the bank for CO2.

Just a suggestion here, but when you refer to someones graphs, could you also detail the names of the people representing the organisation as well – preferably the authors themselves?

I don’t know about other people, but I would be really interested in the source of this rubbish rather than the front organisations that propogate things. I suspect it will be a mere handful of con men.

Some hot-off-the-presses reading for Prof Flannery: Alan Carlin ex USEPA has written a very strong paper debunking the graph at the top of Jo’s post and showing the high CO2 sensitivity hypothesis is wrong. Our own David Archibald gets a credit, as do Prof Lindzen and others.

Dr. Alan Carlin, now retired, was a career environmental economist at EPA when CEI broke the story of his negative report on the agency’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases in June, 2009. Dr. Carlin’s supervisor had ordered him to keep quiet about the report and to stop working on global warming issues. EPA’s attempt to silence Dr. Carlin became a highly-publicized embarrassment to the agency, given Administrator Lisa Jackson’s supposed commitment to transparency.

Makes the current desperate attempts by the USEPA to keep their regulatory power over CO2 look increasingly ideological, when one of their own calls it bunkum.

Here is an interesting twist. I have been saying for a long time that wind turbines rob the power from convection and therefore cause warming(take note Pinochie nose).
Now I have had this fired back at me by a warmist.
The warmist linked to this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028063.300-wind­and-wave-energies-are-not-ren­e­wable-after-all.html
So all those photos of our PM near the wind turbines are photos of her promoting the industry behind climate change not the solution. Her carbon scam will fund more of this cause of warming.
Fortunately the solar decline is currently bringing cooling. So the bird and bat killing noisy monsters should die from lack of expensive maintenance before the sun kicks up again in a few decades.

CO2 emissions don’t mean anything on their own. There has to be empirical scientific evidence (that’s not computer modeling) that CO2 is the primary driver of all of the warming we have seen since the last ice age. There is none and that’s the point.

It’s definitely worth a look at the massive funding going into ‘climate change’ work at Universities etc.
I didn’t add it up, I didn’t need to, it’s a frightening amount of tax payers’ money!
It’s also frightening that all that tax payers’ money is going into producing the sort of dodgy work that is posted here by Dr Evans and Prof Carter.

I found this one though:
2008 The Australian National
University
Dryzek, J Deliberative Global Governance $1,638,730

Would anyone happen to know wtf “Deliberative Global Governance” is/means and why the Rudd Government thought it was a good project to grant over $1.5 million????????
It sounds rather ominous, but I honestly have no idea what a study named like this would entail and why it would need such a sizeable grant?
I’m hoping someone who reads and contributes here might know?

The carbon dioxide levels that occurred in reality were almost exactly those in scenario A, so it is the topmost line that is the relevant forecast.

The three scenarios in the graph were not for different emission levels of carbon dioxide but for emission levels of a number of greenhouse gases including CO2, methane and CFCs. The emission levels that occurred in reality were almost exactly those in scenario B, so it is the middle line that is the relevant forecast, not the topmost line.

By the way I have no qualifications in climate. If I was put in the “About the Authors” section it would be empty of content. Yet here I am schooling Dr David Evans and Professor Bob Carter who have made a basic mistake (at best).

I mean these guys are supposed to know what they are talking about right? Yeah right. They are definitely preaching the choir though. I don’t see any of the past 32 comments spotted this error.

Here you go,
I knew someone would track it down.http://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/people/academic-staff/john-dryzek
A bit scary.
Note how it’s about using (special reference to climate change)
It is absolutely frightening how much money is being spent on’climate change’.
I can’t help thinking it’s about time we got over this highly expensive obsession with producing highly questionable models and justifications of the justified climate models so that people can try and justify some highly questionable political moanouvres like introducing a carbon tax to help save the planet from the results of these highly questionable climate models!
SHEEESH!
Wouldn’t the money be better invested elsewhere?
Like maybe health? or education? or investigating ways to efficiently upgrade our very tired infrastructure? or ……?

Socold (comment 33): Scenario A is indeed the relevant one, as you would have found by clicking on the “source” link provided, quote:

From Appendix B, pg. 9361 of Hansen’s 1998 [sic] paper…

“Specifically, in scenario A CO2 increases as observed by Keeling for the interval 1958-1981 [keeling et al, 1982] and subsequently with a 1.5%/yr growth of the annual increment.”

“In scenario B the growth of the annual increment of CO2 is is [sic] reduced from 1.5%/yr today to 1%/yr in 1990, 0.5%/yr in 2000 and 0 in 2010; thus after 2010 is constant, 1.9 ppmv/yr.”

“In scenario C the CO2 growth is the same as scenarios A and B through 1985; between 1985 and 2000 the annual increment is fixed at 1.5 ppmv/yr; after 2000, CO2 ceases to increase, its abundance remaining fixed at 368 ppmv.”

If I take the average annual increment from 1958-1981 and increase it by 1.5% per year until 2008, I get 385.35 ppmv. The Mauna Loa Observatory’s value for 2008 is 385.57 ppmv.

When I constructed CO2 curves using Hansen’s scenario assumptions and I compare his scenarios to the actual CO2 data recorded since 1988, I get an almost exact match to Scenario “A”…

Unquote.

Madjak (comment 20): The graph has a source link, which tells all. The graph is a copy from Hansen’s paper, as you can see by the title of Hansen’s paper and page number still on it. I also provided a link to the UAH data in the Temperature Shenanigans section, so you can verify that the red line is indeed the UAH data.

Last week the Climate Commission, mostly Professors, were saying Melbourne’s heatwave will occur more frequently and be more intense with higher temperatures. They based their “science” on a one-off event of 2009, what happened last year? Do they believe they speak to fools with short memories?There has been no increase in weather extremes in our history.
Tim Flannery tried to scare us years ago with the same scares he is using now, he is recycling a scare campaign.
Floods, droughts, less snow, sea-level rises, we’ve heard it all before and none of it came to pass.
They also predict more bush fires from co2(seems insane).
Police tell us most fires are lit by arsonists who have improved access to forests by the increased number of roads. Some Green policies also forbid fire-breaks, fuel load burning and allow people to live too close to forests.

That paper by Dr. Miskolczi appears to contradict this one: http://climaterealists.com/?id=7457
“Understanding the Thermodynamic Atmosphere Effect”, Joseph E Postma. Postma appears to have correctly calculated the long term average temperature of the earth, without having to account for ANY greenhouse effect whatsoever. However, as you can see from the comments underneath the article, it has not been well received by peer anti-warmists, so I don’t know what to make of it. (I’m just an electrical engineer, and I’m really battling with all this stuff)

these forecasts are based solely on what are essentially the same faulty climate models as in 1988

Surely, the authors of the report must know that empirical evidence has condemned their modelling already. Likewise, alarmists will seize on the report to promote their cause. Deceit for profit. Isn’t that fraud?

More generally, the Government especially has been shrill in its pronouncements that dire climate change is assured unless emissions are curbed, knowing full well that their claims are diabolically exaggerated and are based, not on science, but the pseudoscience of accepting computer projections as evidence. Deceit, trickery and lies for profit. Fraud?

Thank you, Prof Carter, for your informative analysis of the carbon scam Ms Gillard and her colleagues are about to perpetrate on an unsuspecting Australian electorate. It should be headlines in all your newspapers.

What I would like to know is: What is the REAL purpose behind the so-called carbon (sic) tax? – for there MUST be one! Another very profitable revenue stream for government? An effort to drive all Australians into abject poverty so as to enslave them? A messianic desire to Save the World (born out of delusions of grandeur)?

And, if I’m allowed to ask another question: Exactly what it the current state of the coral reefs off Australia’s east coast. Earlier this year there was an article in Time magazine about the “destruction” (nay, devastation) of the reefs – all due to man-made global warming, of course!

For a thorough grounding on the real truth, including the excellent, “Science & Context in the Global Warming Debate”, a presentation by Prof. Bob Carter. See the Video Wall #1, at the Fraudulent Climate Website. (Click the name “Axel” above).

I agree with the sentiments expressed by “Stop Common Purpose” @ comment #1. These people who express unfounded and scary propositions in the press and mainstream media, ought to produce verifiable, empirical evidence for their assertions, or else they ought to be charged with the criminal offence of Fraud ! They are manufacturing “instruments” for use in a fraud or frauds.

See also the videos featuring Brian Gerrish, at the bottom of Video Wall #7, at the Fraudulent Climate Website. “Common Purpose Government Infiltrators” {UK} (2007) – Brian Gerrish tells “The Truth” about CP, and also “State of The Nation” {UK}(2009) – Brian Gerrish talks about “Common Purpose” & UK Society. Furthermore, at the foot of the Zbigniew Brzezinski & Henry Kissinger Page, at the website you can see the video, “EU : Hitlers Dream Come True“, by Brian Gerrish & Anthony J Hilder.

Hundreds more arcane and eclectic videos on the pages of The Fraudulent Climate of Hokum Science website, too many to mention here. Something for everyone. We search them out, so you don’t have to.

Thank You for your time in reading thus far. Your research is only just beginning. Knowledge is the key to defeating the Hokum & Balderdash of the Carbon Dioxide Fraudsters.

“Socold (comment 33): Scenario A is indeed the relevant one, as you would have found by clicking on the “source” link provided, quote:

From Appendix B, pg. 9361 of Hansen’s 1998 [sic] paper…

“Specifically, in scenario A CO2 increases as observed by Keeling for the interval 1958-1981 [keeling et al, 1982] and subsequently with a 1.5%/yr growth of the annual increment.””

You know what’s bizarre here is that you are this unfamiliar with Hansen’s 1988 projections. Jo isn’t familiar with them either or she wouldn’t have recommended your post as a response.

Directly after the part you quote in Appendix B Hansen then goes on to list the CFC, methane and other greenhouse gas changes that are part of scenario A. Maybe you should try actually reading Hansen 1988, or at very least the abstract which contains:

“We make a 100-year control run and perform experiments for three scenarios of atmospheric composition. These experiments begin in 1958 and include measured or estimated changes in atmospheric CO2, CH4, H2O, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and stratospheric aerosols for the period from 1958 to the present. Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.”

In fact it’s worse because the sentences you quote from appendix B of Hansen 1988 have been extracted in a way to omit the surrounding discussion of how other greenhouse gases (CH4, CFCs) are included in the scenarios. The clue I guess is those ellipses.

“Your DNA must be linked by hatred for David Evans – every post you make is directly attacking this person. WHY?”

I think you are confusing annoyance with hatred.

If he didn’t pump up his expertize on this issue (“The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analyzing complex systems is electrical engineering” LOLWOT!), I would just ignore his silly mistakes.

Socold, evidently you are not getting it, David gave you the link to Hansens actual paper so you can disregard post normal science defending it. Suggest you go back and reread Hansens paper and you will see that Dr. Evans and Carter do have it right!

Climate Realists is run by Piers Corbyn, Hans Schreuder and Stephen Wilde, the first two being closely associated with “the Slayers and PSI (http://funds.gofundme.com/1v39s). Anyone know if Stephen Wilde has any links with PSI “leader” and proposed CEO John O’Sullivan?

BTW, that article of Dianna Cotter’s appeared in Climate Realists in January 2010.

IMHO, any editor who even considered a paper with the obviously hokum title of “The stable stationary value of the earth’s global average atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness”, is franky beyond redemption. There is no such thing as any “stable value” of anything in the Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere is a chaotic system.

What I would like to know is: What is the REAL purpose behind the so-called carbon (sic) tax?

One thing is for sure, the government will be excited about the prospect of ‘handing out compensation’.

Many readers of this blog won’t be familiar with the process of getting money from the government via any type of welfare scheme.

I had my experience with the application for the baby bonus, both in the Howard and Rudd/Gillard era. In the former, you got a form at the hospital, signed it and your money turned up. In the latter, the form to get your money was about 5 pages long, and wanted every excruciating detail of your life, not just whether you had a living child or not (which surely, was the whole point?) It went way beyond income levels and was a full demographic profiling, the likes of which any marketing person would die for.

I will place any money on the fact that, if the scheme comes in, in order to get compensation you’ll have to surrender a massive amount of information to the government. This will be far more detailed than any census. And if you don’t keep them up to date, they’ll probably withhold payments or maybe even fine you.

I’m not saying this is the primary purpose of the tax, but I can guarantee they will be licking their lips over the profiling they’ll be able to generate through this scheme, as well as expanding the reach of those connected to the welfare scheme.

Is there enough fossil fuel left to supply the exponential graph of Carbon dioxide? I understood we were well past peak oil and such like so wonder where the CO2 will come from to fuel the hot air graph.

“Written Statement of John R. Christy
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Subcommittee on Energy and Power
Committee on Energy and Commerce
8 March 2011″

Roger:
According to Prof. Richard Muller’s presentation here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbR0EPWgkEI
“Global Warming — The Current Status: The Science, the Scandal, the Prospects for a Treaty”,
we have plenty of shale oil and natural gas to fall back on if liquid oil reserves run low.

Even according to AR4, the widest temperature range predicted/projected 2000 – 2100 (scenario A1) is 1.4 – 6.4°C, not 2.5 – over 7.5°C (off the chart) as indicated.
Also notice how they manage to ‘hide the decline’ c. 1998 – 2011.

The interviewer spends most of their time asking leading questions trying to provoke Clark into trashtalking any opposition to the carbon tax. (Australian Broadcasting Communists)

Oddly enough for a scientist, Clark mentions “observations” only tangentially and then never talks about what the observations have actually been, spends most of interview talking about politics instead of climate science.
She confesses the anti-action campaign is forcing the CSIRO to go back and look at the observations again, but still doesn’t mention what the observations say.

She seems to think that because there is a price on water, this must imply we have already accepted the principle and sacrifice of a price on carbon. Uh, meegs, people need water, whereas CO2 is needed by plants and is a waste for us.

Neither the IEA reports of oil resources nor IPCC reports of climate are based on reality.

It was only in the 2010 report that the IEA even admitted for the first time in one sentence on one page that world oil production had probably peaked. This despite over 10 years of research around the world on the size, timing, impact, and coping mechanisms of this inevitable problem.

It’s quite bizarre. If the government and the green left want to raise the price of oil to discourage people from burning it… just tell everybody to do absolutely nothing for 3 years until the price of petrol is over 250.0 cents/L. There’s a big chunk taken out of the 40% CO2 emissions that come from transport. And it will have a deleterious effect on retailing and the economy, just like the greens wanted.

It’s like they know they have to get their tax in before the market starts to take care of change and adaptation to Peak Oil all by itself. Couldn’t possibly let people spend their own money on what they know is good for them, oh no, can’t have that. When the need is there, companies will get flexible on working locations and conditions, new transport options will be adopted, etc. I do however worry that the impact of Peak Oil is going to jump in big steps like Orlov says, as opposed to the smooth ramp down like Hubbert predicted. ie- One day petrol is expensive, the next week Saudi Arabia won’t sell any to us at all. Make no mistake, that is starvation time. But there’s nothing we can do about the supply side of the equation.

This whole CAGW / carbon tax saga is a distraction from a bigger real issue that will create large scale dislocation and death within 10 years, within 4 years according to some. Recognising peak oil nationally would bring the panic forward but would ultimately save lives.

Energy efficiency and the the three Rs are always wise actions, regardless of scare stories.

His Scenario B (not a prediction of emissions, but one possible case) is closest to actual emissions over the period covered, but still about 5% high (especially in methane and CFC’s). Keep in mind that those were possible emissions scenarios, not predictions thereof. Second, the climate sensitivity he used (4.2°C / doubling of CO2, thought reasonable at the time) was quite high. Current estimates are around 3°C / doubling of CO2.

If you take Hansen’s model, use actual (as opposed to possible) emissions, and run it with a climate sensitivity of about 3.4°C, it’s right on the temperature record. At the very least, he got the sign of temperature increase right!

—

So: while not perfect by any means, Hansen 1988 didn’t do a bad job. And it provides support for the IPCC climate sensitivity estimate of around 3°C, if not a bit higher.